A descriptor for rights or property interests associated with land abutting the shore of an ocean, sea, or lake. Such rights typically include access to the water, use of the water for limited purposes, an unobstructed view, and receipt of accretions or relictions.
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How its tested
Common Examples
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Recorded Dock Privilege Barred
The Coastal Museum owned land bordering a tidal inlet designated for public use. It recorded a document granting Warren a perpetual right to build and maintain a private dock across the museum's submerged land for his gallery's commercial shipments. Warren sold the gallery to Gina, who continued the dock use. The museum posted public-access signs and threatened removal. Gina sued for a declaration that she held an enforceable private servitude. The court held that the littoral access privilege fell outside servitude doctrine because littoral rights are governed by public-trust principles rather than private running interests.
Beachfront Boundary Dispute
Stop the Beach Renourishment challenged a state project that added sand to eroded beaches. The company claimed the addition deprived littoral owners of their property rights in future accretions. Florida law placed the mean high-water line as the boundary between private littoral property and state-owned submerged land. The owners asserted that the project eliminated their right to receive accretions without compensation. The Court analyzed whether the state action constituted a taking of the littoral owners' special rights to access, view, and accretions.
Stop the Beach Renourishment, Inc. v. Florida Department of Environmental Protection, et al.560 U.S. 702 (2010)
In Florida, the State owns in trust for the public the land permanently submerged beneath navigable waters and the foreshore, making the mean high-water line the ordinary boundary between private beachfront property and state-owned land. Littoral owners hold special rights with regard to the water and foreshore, including the right to receive accretions and relictions to their property.
In 1961, Florida’s Legislature passed the Beach and Shore Preservation Act, which sets procedures for beach restoration and nourishment projects to deposit sand on eroded beaches. A local government may apply to the Department of Environmental Protection for funds and permits, and when placing fill on the State’s submerged lands, authorization from the Board of Trustees of the Internal Improvement Trust Fund is required. Once a beach restoration is determined to be undertaken, the Board sets an erosion control line that replaces the fluctuating mean high-water line as the boundary between privately owned littoral property and state property, after which the common law ceases to increase upland property by accretion.
In 2003, the city of Destin and Walton County applied for permits to restore 6.9 miles of beach within their jurisdictions that had been eroded by several hurricanes. The project would add about 75 feet of dry sand seaward of the mean high-water line. The Department issued a notice of intent to award the permits, and the Board approved the erosion-control line.
Stop the Beach Renourishment, Inc., a nonprofit corporation formed by people who own beachfront property bordering the project area, brought an administrative challenge to the proposed project. After the challenge proved unsuccessful and the Department approved the permits, the corporation challenged the action in state court under the Florida Administrative Procedure Act. The District Court of Appeal for the First District set aside the Department’s final order and certified a question to the Florida Supreme Court.
The Florida Supreme Court answered the certified question in the negative and quashed the First District’s remand. Petitioner sought rehearing on the ground that the Florida Supreme Court’s decision itself effected a taking of the Members’ littoral rights contrary to the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments, but the request for rehearing was denied. The United States Supreme Court granted certiorari to review the case.
Does a recorded private agreement create an enforceable servitude when it grants a littoral access privilege across public-trust land?
No. Rights determined by littoral doctrines are excluded from servitude status under the governing rule. A recorded document purporting to grant a perpetual private dock privilege therefore cannot convert public-trust or littoral rights into a running private interest enforceable between successive owners.
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How does the public-trust doctrine interact with claims that a plat created private shoreline access rights for subdivision lot owners?
Public-trust and navigation limits operate as background public constraints rather than private servitudes. A recorded plat label such as Private Beach Access for Lot Owners may create a private easement only if it arises from private-law sources. The public-trust doctrine itself supplies no appurtenant easement to upland owners.
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Are groundwater or prior-appropriation rights capable of being recharacterized as mutual perpetual covenants that run with the land?
No. Rights determined by ground-water or prior-appropriation doctrines fall outside the definition of servitudes. A recorded agreement declaring such rights to be appurtenant covenants therefore cannot bind successors as a servitude even when the purchaser had actual knowledge of the instrument.
Supporting sources
560 U.S. 702 (2010)
…that, contrary to the Act’s preservation of “ ‘all common-law riparian rights,’ ” the order had eliminated two of the Members’ littoral rights: (1) the right to receive accretions to their property; and (2) the right to have the contact of their property with the water remain intact. This, it believed, would be an unconstitutional…